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When building a Music Artist Fanbase, it’s worth thinking about The Marketing Funnel.

Don’t worry! I’m not about to ruin your day with some boring corporate gobbledygook.

But it’s worth knowing how your funnel works, so marketing efforts can be optimised, hopefully leaving more time for music creation.

What is a Marketing Funnel?

In simple terms, it’s the steps on the journey people take with you. From initial discovery, through to becoming a Superfan, and all stages in between.

The top of the funnel is wide. Reach lots of people, casually stumbling across your content. Further down the funnel, fewer numbers remain. These are the increasingly hardcore fans, ones who’ll ultimately become paying supporters.

The exact number of steps in the funnel is entirely down to analysis of your target audience and approach to “recruiting” new fans. Typically, they’ll be three to five stages, as people transition from mildly curious to crazily obsessed.

For a musician, the funnel doesn’t end with a simple sale. It’s about an ongoing relationship of community, loyalty and connection. Real fans won’t just stream or buy the music. They’ll join your story, the music becoming a soundtrack to their own lives.

A Basic Marketing Funnel

A regular product, like a new mobile phone, might have three main marketing stages:

1. Awareness: You see ads about the new phone, implanting memories and familiarity with the brand and product.

2. Consideration: Your current phone starts to die. You’re in the market for a new one, researching options. That phone you saw lots of ads for previously, is top-of-mind and joins your wish list.

3. Purchase: Deliberations complete, you buy the new phone. The purchase leads back all the way to the first ad you saw months ago.

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The Musician’s Marketing Funnel

Here’s what a marketing funnel might look like when specifically tailored for a Fanbase building strategy. It has five stages and I like to label them as the “5 A’s”:

#1. Announce (Awareness)

• What it is: Reach as many relevant people as possible, giving them great reasons to get interested in you.

• How it works: A TikTok clip of your amazing new track, a trending Instagram Reel from the studio, a live jam on YouTube. Grab attention. Stop them scrolling. Make it memorable.

#2. Amplify (Awareness and Consideration)

• What it is: People aren’t going to see or hear you just once and immediately become a Superfan. Keep reaching those to whom you’ve already “announced” yourself with regular posts and ads. It’s essentially an education process.

• How it works: Vary content shown across social platforms. Different songs or live performance clips. Videos sharing stories behind the songs. See increased engagement and the first concrete signs of tangible interest, such as a follow on Spotify, likes on Instagram or a subscribe on YouTube.

#3. Activate (Consideration)

• What it is: For those now engaging, it’s time to get their details. Nurturing them directly with high value content and offers. Build the artist-fan relationship more deeply.

• How it works: Sign-ups to an email list from targeted ads, posts or via directional content on social pages or a website. It’s a key stage, allowing one-to-one dialogue with fans. Provide high perceived value content, such as exclusive offers, early bird music releases, VIP gig tickets, even live Q&As.

#4. Acquisition (Purchase)

• What it is: Not all fans will “buy” in the traditional sense. They’ll primarily be streaming your music. Yet, hardcore fans will support you with their cash if high perceived value products are available.

• How it works: Limited edition physical releases of your singles, EPs or albums. Merchandise including t-shirts, posters, stickers or mugs. Promote via email, SMS and social pages to engaged fans only.

#5. Advocacy

• What it is: Fans become Superfans and tell the world about their favourite new artist. This is a potential goldmine, helping grow your fanbase far faster, through effective endorsement.

• How it works: Fans repost and share your content, bring friends to shows, wear your merch and use your music in their own social posts.

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Assessing Your Funnel

Oooo, errr!

No, seriously. Understanding the numbers at each stage of the funnel is crucial to optimising marketing efforts. For every 100 people at the Announce stage, only about 5 will likely transcend to Acquisition and beyond.

While it’s therefore critical to fill the top of the funnel with as many relevant, curious music fans as possible, increasing the percentage who jump from each stage, even by a small amount, can make a big difference to the eventual number of Superfans.

Take Action

Map out your funnel and track the numbers. Adapt and test marketing content to see how and where incremental improvements through the funnel are achieved.

Remember, it’s just about following a plan. Don’t just post, advertise and hope.

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I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again …

While “THE MUSIC” is your passion and requires space and time to be creative, to be truly successful and make a career within the music industry, you must treat what you do, and all its related touchpoints, like any other business venture.

Social Media Fan Pages will make up a very important component of the business side of things. You do have Fan Pages set up, don’t you? Assuming it’s a resounding yes to that question, it means ensuring Social Media Profile Pages are up to date, links all work correctly and you are posting consistently.

Your artist website, even if it’s minimal and provides only basic information and links to other channels, should also follow suit and be completely aligned.

For any new fans, or just the plain old curious online users who stumble across your music, social channels are likely to be their first point of contact. If underwhelming, messy or inconsistent, the engagement and dwell time offered by these passing music lovers will be minimal at best.

Remember people are busy.

They’re easily distracted.

They’re quickly skimming for information, not wanting to hunt or study deeply to uncover some wonderful new tunes for their ears. Make their lives easy-peasy.

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Here are five simple housekeeping steps to follow. You’d be surprised how often these are overlooked or simply not stuck to:

Profile Picture: It’s so obvious this should be consistent across ALL platforms. Right? Same imagery, headshot, landscape, photoshoot. Whatever look you’re going for and however it’s been captured, you must be easily recognisable across different platforms.

Bio: Make sure this is tight and punchy. Avoid waffle. Say something meaningful and engaging to your core, bullseye target audience. Use the barstool technique to help write a bio. Imagine sitting with someone at a bar, explaining to them concisely what you’re all about. Imagine what this other person looks like. How they act. How they react. What they’re wearing. Imagine how you’d want to talk to them. Make the conversation real and personable. This will help hone your bio and resonate with more of the right people.

Links: Again, it goes without saying these should be live, working, clean and tidy. You can use Linktree to organise them but keep things short. Ensure you promote the most topical, recent news, information or content as the priority. Push stuff from months ago down the pecking order.

Posts: Writing content daily or similarly frequently can seem like a chore. Music is the priority and that’s understandable. If you don’t want to post every five minutes, then just ensure to schedule posts with a frequency that works for you. Weekly, fortnightly, whatever feels comfortable and achievable. Having a plan and sticking to it consistently will instil discipline. Over time it should become habitual. If you have ideas for content which can be staggered across several posts, plan it out and drip-feed it to your audience. Schedule things in a way fitting with your time plan.

Analytics: I know, I know. Data may seem boring and not especially creative! Yet if you know which content is resonating and which isn’t, future posts can be written and optimised far more effectively. Make sure to understand the main metrics of reach, impressions, engagement and click through rates.

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I’ll leave you today with this thought …

A good way to think of your Social Media Fan Pages is like a merch table at a gig. It should be branded, simple to find stuff, tidy and eye-catching. It should be easy to form a good first impression of you as an artist.

Do your fan pages do that? If not, get tinkering…

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If you’re actively promoting your music across social media, you no doubt look at a variety of metrics to determine the success of every post or every ad.

One of the most common of these metrics is the “View.”

But what is a view exactly?

Is it the same on each platform? Spoiler alert … it’s not!

And what types of view are more valuable to the music artist?

Understanding the view metric is hugely important. Whether chasing reach, building a fanbase or selling merchandise to a dedicated following, you want to maximise the effectiveness of any social media activity.

In today’s edition of The Music Marketer, we’ll help you navigate the choppy waters of views and viewability.

The Definition of a Social Media View

Rather unhelpfully perhaps, each social media platform has its own rules for what counts as a view. So, when it comes to understanding the differences, it’s a bit like everyone in a band playing the same song in a different tuning! Improvised jazz perhaps. But not nice for easy analysis.

Here’s how the major players, Meta (Facebook and Instagram), TikTok and YouTube, define a view in their own ecosystems.

Facebook

• Organic (Free) and Paid Views

  • A video view is counted after 3 seconds of watching time, even if the video auto-plays while the user scrolls past it.

• ThruPlays

  • For ad placements, this is the main metric. It’s a user who watched at least 15 seconds or the whole video if it’s shorter.

• Key Takeout

  • Auto-play equates to an inflated figure for views. If you’re focussed on real engagement for content or video ads, you should monitor watch time or how long people stay on your videos.

Instagram

• Feed Video Views (Reels and IGTV)

  • Counted after 3 seconds. Like Facebook, auto-play can lead to an inflated perception of the value of any views.

• Stories

  • A view is counted if someone merely opens your Story, even if they skip it after a split second.

• Reels

  • Just 1 second is enough to be registered as a view. While this may be great for “token” exposure figures, it’s clearly not necessarily a sign of real interest.

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TikTok

• Organic and Paid Views

  • We know TikTok is all about fast, shorter content. As you might expect, a view is therefore counted the moment a video plays, even if it’s just a fleeting glimpse! You can rack up “views” really quickly on the platform, but did the user actually pay any attention to the content posted?

• Organic Posts

  • It’s definitely worth looking beyond views, towards engagement stats, such as likes, comments and shares. This gives a more rounded analysis of performance.

• Paid Ads

  • TikTok offers more in-depth breakdowns like 2-second, 6-second and 100% views for those who watched the whole thing.

YouTube

• Quality Over Quantity

  • A view only counts when someone intentionally starts watching and stays on the video for at least 30 seconds. If it’s shorter, they need to watch the whole thing.

• Organic Versus Paid

  • The same rules apply. For ad placements, data on how long people watched before they skipped is also available.

• YouTube Shorts

  • These are more recent additions to the YouTube world and views count immediately at the start of playback. Stick to the classic YouTube formats as a first port of call, unless you have a very specific reason to use Shorts.

Judging Effectiveness

When reviewing statistics for views on social media activity, ensure you look beyond the basic numbers. Where available, utilise time-viewed breakdowns. The longer the viewing time, the more likely the user has actually noticed and absorbed your content.

Use engagement statistics for posts or ad placements to also understand traction beyond basic viewing metrics.

Once you have enough data, look to create specific target audience segments in the platforms based upon those with longer viewing times or who are more highly engaged. This should improve performance further over time.

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Fake Plastic Views

Okay, forgive me for the tenuous Radiohead pun. Fraudulent and Bot views are an unfortunate but serious hazard in the digital world of marketing. Minimising exposure to such nastiness is therefore very worthwhile, especially when it comes to paid advertising.

A fraudulent view is one from a bot, a click farm or other type of shady behaviour. These views are not real fans. You’ll be wasting time and money trying to engage with them further as part of a fanbase growth strategy.

The social platforms all take steps to filter out this type of activity, but to varying degrees of success.

If buying followers or views from third parties via any of these platforms, tread carefully. You’re likely to be getting a false impression of any fanbase growth and potentially are at risk of incurring penalties from the platforms.

Geographic Red Flags

If you’re based in a country like the UK, and suddenly blow up with tonnes of views in random countries across Asia, Russia or any other locations you wouldn’t normally expect, question it. It may be genuine, but it may very well be fraud.

Again, look beyond the basic viewing statistics and understand engagement with any posts or ads.

When buying ads on the social platforms, geo-target to your own country, and possibly a few other main markets. Be very selective here, at least initially. This will limit investment and any risk of potential fraudulent incidents eating into your budget.

Real Actions

If you’re just looking to get out there, grow reach, and start to build a fanbase, you won’t always be able to ask for immediate, real, direct response actions like signing up to your channel, mailing list, or even buying music or merch from an online shop.

But, if you are in a position to do this with either organic, and especially paid placements, it will help evaluate the quality of the views. A higher conversion rate from view to real action should indicate a level of quality and make it less likely to be a case of fraudulent behaviour.

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Which Social Media Platform Has the Most Viewing Fluff?

Thought: If your goal is merely to get scale based on views, TikTok and Reels can be very effective. However, if you want to build a real, more loyal fanbase or show music industry folk serious engagement, longer-form Instagram, Facebook and YouTube content will prove invaluable.

The Final View (sorry!)

Views on the social platforms are not all created, delivered or measured equally.

10,000 views of 1 second on TikTok might well be judged to be of less value than 1,000 Instagram views of 15 seconds or 500 views on YouTube of 30 seconds.

How you judge the effectiveness and worth of a view is based on your own objectives and understanding of the audience.

Whatever the situation, just remember the following checklist:

1. Know what counts as a view on each platform.

2. Use engagement (likes, shares, comments, saves) as an additional layer of quality measurement.

3. If you’re able to illicit a “real” action such as a registration, subscribe or purchase, these will be very powerful signals of quality.

4. Beware buying views from third parties.

The social platforms are hugely powerful tools in helping get your music out there and you should, of course, embrace them. However, always question, scrutinize and analyse how and why you’re using them.

The old saying goes, “if it looks too good to be true, it probably is” and that holds in the social media universe, just like any other.

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Here’s the final part of a trilogy of issues of The Music Marketer, where we’ve shown how to apply MBA level marketing thinking to your promotional work as an independent artist.

Today we’ll explore the final two tactical “P’s”:

• Promotion (Marketing Communications)

• Place (Distribution channels)

Before we tuck-in though, if you missed the first two parts, you can check them out here;

Part 1 – explored the importance of Market Orientation and Marketing Strategy-before-Tactics.

Part 2 – linked SMART Marketing Objectives to Strategy and started to unpack the Tactical toolbox with two of the four “P’s”; Product and Price.

Promotion (Marketing Communications)

This is the tactical area where most artists, and indeed most marketers, jump straight in and get busy doing stuff. Yet, as we’ve shown, without the proper groundwork covered in the earlier strategic steps, as well as consideration of your “product” and pricing tactics, the promotional bit will fall flat on its face.

Your Marketing Communications plan will essentially consist of all the different marketing and media channels you deploy to deliver against your strategic decisions and subsequently defined objectives.

As a self-promoting artist, spending your own money, the chosen channels will be determined by several factors;

1. Available Time: to manage one or more channels effectively.

2. Marketing Budget: particularly if you’re looking at any paid media channels, but also in relation to the production of any content or other assets.

3. Technical Expertise: if you only know one channel well, start there and add more to the mix once you feel comfortable and begin seeing positive results.

4. Fan’s Journey: from discovery, through curiosity, to high interest and finally hardcore fandom for those ready to buy and watch you. You’ll select the channel, or channels, best fitting your key audience’s behaviours and where you are most able to move them from one stage of your marketing funnel to the next .

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Social media will very likely tick many of the boxes when it comes to your marketing communications tactics. It’s the obvious starting place for any artist. However, there are some key considerations relating back to your earlier strategic decisions;

• Platforms: Instagram, Facebook or TikTok? YouTube? Multiple platforms or a single one? Where are you currently active already and where do your fans gravitate?

• Organic Content: This can easily be started and is free to distribute on the platforms of your choice, as regularly as you wish. Organic audience growth can be slower and more limited without other promotional routes, such as PR or live gigging, to drive broader interest into your marketing eco-system. Creative production is also worth thinking about. What types of content do you want to produce? How does it fit with your “Product?” How much time and money do you have available for organic outreach?

• Paid Advertising: This should be focussed initially on your social platform of choice, if you have one leading environment. Instagram and Facebook remain the most sophisticated paid social ad platforms and are a great place to start if you’re already active in those spaces. They’ve been developed over many years and offer a multitude of targeting, flighting and creative options. TikTok has enjoyed huge growth in recent years, especially with younger audiences. However, TikTok performance is currently still often stronger through organic posts and their subsequent promotion, rather than pure, paid advertising to new audiences.

• Email Marketing: If you’re on your way to building a list of opted-in fans, congratulations! Using email marketing to regularly communicate with your followers can be a great platform to push key updates, exclusive releases, early-bird notifications, new merchandise or other special fan updates.

While there are a wide range of other possibilities when it comes to marketing communications, if you’re starting out, or doing much of the work on your own, I’d recommend initially sticking to one or more of the three routes mentioned.

When you consider the depth and breadth of the various social platforms, there’s a huge amount of headroom. As you become more experienced, you’ll know when it makes sense to expand across more platforms or into other areas completely.

YouTube has not been specifically recommended as a potential marketing communications channel for Organic or Paid Advertising. It can certainly be part of the mix, but the recommendation is to prioritise social platforms such as Instagram, Facebook and TikTok, as their eco-systems are more entwined with people’s lives. Think about your own personal activity. Do you spend more time scrolling on these platforms, engaging with friends and family, across a variety of topics?

Special Note: The Music Marketer is dedicated to helping artists grow their fanbase through the effective use of media advertising. Future issues of this newsletter will cover the use of social platforms in much more detail. Stay tuned!

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Place (Distribution Channels)

This is where your fans get to stream and buy your music in all its glory.

It’s any channel you use to enable purchases of your music or other merchandise. It would also include any real-world venues or virtual locations where you play for audiences too.

Certain distribution channels, such as YouTube, will, as mentioned already, also possibly act as marketing communications channels. But we’ll assume slightly different “outputs” for distribution, defined as the end products of finished music, merchandise or performances.

• Music Streaming Platforms: You’ll want to make your music as accessible as possible on the listener’s preferred choice of platform. Apple Music, Spotify, SoundCloud, Deezer and Bandcamp are all likely to be key destinations for your audience and will require a presence.

• Video: YouTube provides a fantastic platform to deliver music videos of your recorded work, alongside any other type of video content. With the opportunity to earn ad revenue from video views and also the ability to host links to sell more of your own products or third party “affiliate” offers, YouTube is definitely worthy of consideration for the independent-minded artist. TikTok, Instagram and other video focussed platforms also offer the ability to showcase your work, but are more likely to be prioritised for promotional communications to build your fanbase.

• Merchandise: Dependent on the type of products you are selling, options including Shopify provide some of the most robust e-commerce solutions. However, they will require some set-up and ongoing management to properly utilise.

• Live: Gig venues, pop-up live performances and virtual livestreams again provide a mix of revenue-earning distribution channels and promotional vehicles. Exactly how you make use of them will depend considerably on where you are in your career and how regularly you play live or tour.

With all these routes to market, the key is to make your music widely available and easily accessible. Don’t make your fans have to work to find you. Whether using a single or multi-channel distribution model, think back to the goals set, objectives agreed and available resources to balance marketing tasks against your core music-making craft.

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The Final Word:

The last three issues of the Music Marketer have been great to share with you. We’ve covered a fair bit of ground on the theory and practice of marketing strategy-to-tactics.

Ensure you get your strategy defined and realistic objectives set first. Then select and manage the tactical choices available across the 4 P’s of Product, Price, Promotion and Place. Always do it this way round. Do not start with tactics.

If you follow the basics of the MBA Marketing framework, as adapted for music artists, you’ll avoid the many mistakes of haphazard activity and inconsistent results common amongst tactics-first approaches.

I’m keen to know where you are with your own marketing, and the challenges you’ve faced in getting clarity on either your approach or the actual execution. Do get in touch to tell your story and help guide future issues of the Music Marketer.

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In the last issue of The Music Marketer, we discussed the need to avoid a very common marketing trap of just doing “stuff” for the sake of appearing busy and hoping something works.

Instead, I outlined the need to step back and put a clear plan in place to promote your work … before you start taking action.

An effective way to create such a plan is by using the MBA level marketing framework. We ran through how to apply it to the specific needs of self-promoting music artists.

For a full recap on the first two critical stages of Market Orientation and Marketing Strategy, check out Part 1 here.

Today, we’re going to begin diving into the third and final stage of Marketing Tactics.

I’d originally planned to nail the entire tactical talk in one article. However, there is so much to share. I’ve therefore decided it would benefit by being split across two further editions. This article now becomes part two of a three-part Trilogy! What a tease! I know.

Before we open the tactical box of toys though, there is one further, very important interim step. It links your diagnosis and strategic decisions to the subsequent tactical selections you’re about to make. I’m talking about Objective Setting.

Setting Objectives

These are the specific marketing goals or outcomes you want to achieve in a defined time period. Being clear on your objectives will provide focus for your activities and will allow you to review, measure and benchmark success.

Look to define your objectives using the SMART acronym;

• Specific

• Measurable

• Ambitious

• Realistic

• Time Bound

An example marketing objective written to meet the SMART criteria would look like this:

Increase the number of Followers amongst my “Hardcore Gig Goer” audience segment, from 250 to 500, by 31^st December 2025.

Research by Marketing Professor Mark Ritson of 5,645 Effie Marketing Awards entries indicated effectiveness scores peak at between two and four objectives. Aim to keep your annual number of marketing objectives below five at most.

Budgeting

With your objectives now set, you will need to determine an available marketing budget to deliver them.

As an independent music artist, self-funding, you are likely to have very real limits to your available resources of both money and time. I would therefore recommend completing the objective setting exercise in tandem with your budgetary considerations. Balance as you see fit and be realistic as to what you can comfortably achieve.

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Time For Tactics

With your strategy, objectives and available budget now set, you can move on to the available tactical choices. There are four key tactical areas in marketing, commonly referred to as the “4 P’s”:

• Product

• Price

• Promotion (or Marketing Communications)

• Place (or Distribution Channels)

As with strategy, I’m not going to get deep into the academic theory of each tactical option. There is a wealth of information available out there should you be curious to find out more.

Instead I’ll show you some directional ideas and examples on how applying the best principles of the 4 P’s to your music marketing can help deliver increased success.

We’ll take a look at Product and Price in this issue, with Promotion and Place to follow in the final part of this (now) three-part newsletter series.

Product

What exactly do we mean by Product?

Phillip Kotler, often referred to as one of the Fathers of Modern Marketing, defined a product as;

Anything that can be offered to market for attention, acquisition, use or consumption. It includes physical objects, services, personalities, places, organisations and ideas.

The basic consumer need you are fulfilling with your music is one of entertainment. But that’s clearly a little dry! It’s not really how or what your “product” of music represents. It’s a passion point for you as the creator and it’s very often a passion point for your audience, the listeners, especially those hardcore fans.

As a musician, your product isn’t just your songs, it’s the whole kit and kaboodle. It’s the entire experience of who you are as an artist, made up of several interconnected areas:

• Music: The genre or scene, emotional engagement, quality, lyrics and vibe are a central aspect of your product.

• Visual Identity: Your image as an artist, photos, video content, artist branding and cover art are all strong supporting elements to your music. They can be just as, if not more powerful, in today’s age of visual media.

• Story: Your personal background. How you’ve got to where you are as an artist. Your struggles and successes. Who you’ve met along the way. Where you’ve been and why. These all make up how you tell your story, enabling your audience to really connect with you. Emerging artists often downplay or omit their “journey”, instead trying to promote themselves like they’ve already made it. This is usually a mistake. Being genuine and transparent about where you are (and where you aren’t), while putting your own spin on things, will make your audience warm to you.

• Fan Interactions: Your product extends to how you engage and react to interested individuals and fans. Online comments, direct messages, emails, livestreams, alongside real-world gigs or events all shape how your followers perceive you.

When thinking about your product, ask “what does it feel like to be a fan of you?”

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Price

You may believe pricing is less relevant to you as a musician, given the main outlets for your work are the streaming platforms like Apple Music and Spotify, along with video platforms like YouTube.

Yet pricing is still an important consideration when applied to certain aspects of your output, your product. Always be mindful of the value you are offering. Once your fans are engaged enough to buy from you, the uniqueness of your work and their passion to support it, enables you to charge premiums when offering real and perceived value.

In today’s world of immediately available, digital, downloadable content, fans will place high value on real, tangible stuff they can get their hands on, or experiences they can savour and share with like-minded fan friends. That’s a huge advantage to music artists looking to generate an income from their fanbase.

• Merchandising: Generate increased support from your hardcore fans by offering limited edition or special-to-order products. These could include CDs, vinyl or even cassette editions of your songs, to t-shirts, sweatshirts, hats or other wearables. Higher perceived value of these items, scarcity created through limited supply, as well as an innate desire from your fans to really support you and your work, allows pricing premiums to be set.

• Ticket Pricing: While venues may control admission prices, what additional value can you offer or bundle in at higher prices? Backstage or soundcheck access? Exclusive or secret digital content? Bundled merch with any ticket sale or group of ticket sales?

• Memberships: Create an exclusive feeling members-only club with a monthly fee or donation. Can you offer exclusive content or first release previews to your signed up community? Livestreams or online Q&A sessions? Behind-the-scenes practice or recording session videos? Merch or ticketing specials or preferences on new items or dates? This can be a great way to encourage ongoing support and recurring revenue from your biggest fans. Just make sure you’re delivering as promised!

That’s all we’ll cover for today. In the final part of the trilogy, we’ll talk through the final two tactical P’s – Promotion (Marketing Communications) and Place (Distribution Channels).

While waiting, consider the following questions for your own marketing?

1. Do you have clearly defined marketing objectives, derived from a well developed strategy?

2. Does your available money and time fit with those objectives or do you need to make reasonable adjustments?

3. Is your entire product consistent and desirable? Have you asked “what does it feel like to be a fan of you?”

4. Do you have any product areas where you can set pricing? If so, are you placing a high perceived value on your products to achieve maximum returns and help generate additional income for yourself?

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Do you have a clear plan for your music marketing? Or are you too busy just making the actual music?

Does marketing yourself and your sound feel like a chaotic flurry of content creation?

Posting on TikTok.

Updating your YouTube channel or Spotify profile.

Uploading behind the scenes footage on Instagram.

I’m sure you feel like you just need to be doing stuff. All. The. Time.

But, as the old saying goes, “fail to plan, plan to fail.”

If you’re ready to stop just doing stuff, for the sake of doing stuff. If you’re ready to start thinking like a marketer, not just like a musician, this is a blueprint you can follow.

Broken down over the next two issues of The Music Marketer, we’ll explore an adapted version of esteemed Marketing Professor, Mark Ritson’s, Mini MBA Marketing Course.

This framework has been honed from decades of real-world brand strategy experience in the commercial sector. However, it’s entirely possible to use the same thinking to build a smart and structured plan of action for promoting your music.

Remember, remember … just knocking out a few videos and shareable posts when you get a chance is simply not a proper marketing plan. It is spray-and-pray. It might work but you’ll need to get very good at praying for it to pay off!

What does the methodical marketer do to get towards realising a shiny marketing plan then?

Essentially, there are three distinct sections to crack for this marketing wizardry to take shape;

1. Market Orientation and Market Research

2. Marketing Strategy – composed of Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning (STP)

3. Marketing Tactics – made up of the “4 P’s” (Product, Price, Promotion or marketing communications and Place or distribution channels)

What is the most common error made by marketers, businesses and individuals performing any type of marketing?

Starting with number 3. Starting with the tactics.

Starting by just doing stuff to feel busy and have some things “out there.”

It’s arse-about-face.

Don’t ever just do stuff.

Stop.

Think.

Doing stuff is the complete opposite and wrong way to go about your marketing!

Let’s look at how Marketing should be done properly.

I’m not going to get deep into the weeds of each part of the academic marketing framework in these articles. It’s safe to say there is a wealth of information out there on the subject if you want to know more.

However, I’ll give a brief overview of some of the potential considerations and leave you to think how you can apply this to your own situation. In the remainder of Part 1 of this article, I’ll look at Market Orientation and Market Research, together with the three components of Marketing Strategy.

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Stage 1: Market Orientation and Market Research: Start With Fans, Not Just Your Music

In business, market orientation means starting with and obsessing over what your prospects, what your potential customers, actually want, as opposed to starting with the “product.”

There are sometimes quoted, apparent exceptions to this mantra. Nobody realised they wanted an iPod until Steve Jobs decided we all needed one just over 20 years ago. However, Jobs’ genius was understanding the consumer actually wanted “1,000 songs in their pocket.” That was the consumer need or insight. The iPod solved the problem of previously only being able to have one cassette or CD to listen to while on the move with your “Walkman" or “Discman.” I’m definitely old enough to remember that very real music listening problem as I trooped across the pavements of many English towns in my youth!

As an artform, music might arguably be considered a slightly different beast to your favourite electronic gadget, shampoo or other everyday consumer good. Noel Gallagher, of Oasis fame, very colourfully said;

“The consumer didn’t ****ing want Jimi Hendrix. But they got him. And it changed the world.

And the consumer didn’t want Sgt Pepper’s. But they got it.

And they didn’t want the Sex Pistols. But they got it.

**** the customer. The customer doesn’t know what he wants. You ****ing give it to him and he likes it.”

A music artist will have an intuitive feel for what the public wants to hear. Often this will be based on their own tastes, feelings and cultural preferences. The successful artists will often be the ones who tap into the “zeitgeist of the moment” or create one of cultural significance through their work. The emotive, tribal and arty nature of music is perhaps slightly unique.

If you’re already playing gigs, you’ll know the sort of venues and crowd you’re appealing to. You’ll know who is responding positively to your songs. You need to understand your audience as deeply as you understand your own sound.

Ask yourself:

• Who listens to artists like me?

• What other artists are they into?

• What are their interests, hobbies and beliefs?

• What kind of content do they like to engage with?

• What platforms do they use?

There are a variety of tools you can use to help deep-dive and understand your audience more accurately:

• Music-Map: I’ve touched on this one in a previous article as a tool to identify popular artists with similar fanbases and audience overlap

• Spotify for Artists: includes tools for demographics and top listener locations

• Instagram, Facebook and TikTok analytics: for age and gender breakdowns

• Reddit, Discord or Fan Forums: observe language, behaviours, wants and needs

• Instagram polls or comments threads to ask your own fans directly.

Why market orientation and research matters: great marketing is more than just pushing your music. It’s about fitting your content into and around your fans lives in a way which feels authentic, needed and valuable to them.

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Stage 2: Marketing Strategy: STP – Segmentation, Targeting, Positioning

Once you’ve researched the entire market potential for your music, it’s time to get strategic. In marketing, strategy is often confused or over-complicated but essentially boils down to answering the following questions;

• Who are you targeting and why?

• Just as, or more importantly, who you’re choosing NOT to target and why?

You may decide you want to target all potential people in your target market. Equally, as an emerging artist, you may have limited funds, time or other resources which prevent you from spreading so broadly.

Segmentation (of entire market/audience)

By segmenting your whole potential market into different, distinct groups, gleaned from your market research of course, you can make rational, value-led decisions on which sub-groups to focus upon.

Your segmentation may be made up of factors like:

• Age range (older, younger or perceived financial independence)

• Location (own city or country where you are more active playing live versus further afield)

• Behaviour (highly active, engaged fans or purchasers versus passively interested)

• Music interests (split by artists or genres)

Targeting

Based on your segmentation criteria, you would then choose which individual segments to focus your efforts upon.

For example, if geography is a critical factor in fans likely interest of you, you may double-down on local followers as your priority.

In the same example, this may mean choosing to be less focussed on potential fans further afield, perhaps because you have no ability to be able to play to them live any time soon.

Note, you can still choose to target the whole market, but you may tailor more focussed live event or meet-up communications for your hardcore “local” fans.

Positioning

This is a fancy marketing word for defining what you’re about and what you stand for (as an artist). This is the reason or reasons people should care about your music and you as an artist. You want to make this as simple and succinct as possible. As a musician it will likely be defined by your music itself and the genre or sub-culture you sit within.

A positioning statement template might look something like this:

For [target audience segment], I’m a [genre/style] artist who [differentiator], unlike [alternative artist types].

As an example:

“For fans of raw, emotional indie music, I’m a bedroom artist who writes stripped down, melodic songs about personal relationships and loss, with an intimate lo-fi vibe, setting me apart from the overly polished big name acts such as X, Y, Z.”

Your positioning should then run through every aspect of your output, look, feel and “brand.” Your visuals, tone, even how you speak and act on social media or other platforms.

If you have more than one segment to target, you will have different positioning statements for each, or at least specific variations of the wider umbrella positioning for the whole market.

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That’s it.

Marketing Strategy in a nutshell.

If you can crack the strategic part effectively, understanding the tactics you should employ, based on the 4 P’s, should follow relatively straightforwardly. You will already know who you’re planning to target and why.

In the next issue of The Music Marketer, we’ll review the tactical choices you need to consider. Yes, this includes the “doing lots of stuff” parts of the equation!

While you’re waiting, think about your current marketing approach:

• Are you just doing stuff?

• Do you really understand your potential audience and what they want from their music?

• Do you really know who you’re targeting and why?

• Do you have a unique differentiator to position yourself to potential fans?

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Hub and Spoke is an organisational framework from the business world, especially the logistics and transportation sectors.

Author and entrepreneur James Altucher outlines a variation of Hub and Spoke for creators in the digital economy. His version describes the idea of an individual leveraging their core expertise and focus to create content and value across multiple channels or touchpoints. Such a strategy can increase opportunities, gravitas, perceived level of expertise on a subject and, ultimately, an individual’s number of income streams and earning potential.

Imagine a bicycle wheel. The “Hub” in the centre would be you. Your main music goal would be the focus of the Hub, formed by your main ideas, skills and experiences. Spokes radiating outwards from the Hub represent all the different ways you can create and deliver value related to your main goal, but not necessarily directly associated with it.

As a musician today, making a living from your music alone is challenging. The Hub and Spoke framework encourages you to think beyond the obvious, singular route. It forces you to invent multi-dimensional ways to promote and monetise your music-related skills. These might include:

• Tutorial YouTube videos of your favourite artist songs

• General music instrument lessons on YouTube or creation of courses to sell online

• Tips and tricks YouTube videos on music production for home producers

• Full, recorded cover versions of your favourite artist songs to share on YouTube

• Newsletter or blog about your favourite artist, reviewing old and new music or providing gig reviews

• Regular podcast, with similar content ideas as for a newsletter

• Fashion or make-up content tips for music artists in specific genres

• Listen-along YouTube videos with some of your favourite artist tracks

• Music equipment reviews based on your own use or shopping experiences

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If the subject matter of your Spoke content is even loosely related to your main musical endeavours, it’s entirely possible to cross-engage the Spoke audiences to help achieve your primary goal as an artist.

For example, let’s say you decide to review song tracks or albums by your favourite band via a dedicated YouTube channel. The same band also happen to be a key influence on your own music and writing. You build an audience for the review content over time, then subtly and carefully use your secondary vehicle to promote your own music, video and other content. Your Spoke becomes a route to exposing new individuals to your main body of work. It provides a completely new source of Fanbase growth.

Related Spoke initiatives can also be fantastic for creating real and diversified income streams, supplementing your main job or providing additional funds for your main music career. Whether you choose digital advertising revenue derived from YouTube, sales of your own digital products such as music education courses, or third-party product sales derived from affiliate links in your content platforms, there are numerous clever ways to monetize any audience you’ve spent time and effort nurturing.

Generation of any type of Spoke content does of course require additional time and other resources. This needs to be balanced against your primary music activities and main ambition. However, there are solutions available to making additional content creation easier. From AI workflow streamlining and creation tools you can personally access, through to cost effective freelance help via the likes of Upwork or Fiverr, you can organise things to ensure an optimal approach suiting your lifestyle and goals.

Whatever your approach, having at least one secondary “Spoke” element is a great way to indirectly grow your core music Fanbase, while also developing your own musical or other content creation skills.

What interests, knowledge and expertise related to your music could you apply to other digital content creation channels using the Hub and Spoke concept?

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There’s a hidden gem of an online research tool that could seriously boost marketing efforts to grow your Fanbase – Music-Map. It’s a completely free, interactive webpage where you can explore how different music artists are “connected” through shared fans and listening habits.

Let’s break down and show how this clever little resource can sharpen an understanding of your broad target audience. It will help elevate “effective” reach and relevance of your music marketing content.

What is Music-Map?

It’s an online discovery tool visualising relationships between well known music artists, based on fan overlap and listening preferences. Just type in any artist’s name and Music-Map generates a two dimensional, “constellation” view of related ones. The closer artist names are grouped, the higher degree of fan similarity.

It’s quick, easy and, most importantly, 100% free. Think of it as a shortcut to the minds (and playlists) of your potential future fans!

Here is an example: I searched for a band close to my heart – The Cure. Here’s what Music-Map shows me:

You can see bands like Joy Division, The Smiths, as well as Depeche Mode, New Order, Interpol and David Bowie clustered closely to The Cure in the centre of the visual. Unsurprisingly perhaps, this suggests a significant overlap in listeners between these artists.

Why Emerging Artists Should Use Music-Map

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Challenge Your Biases With Objective Data

Every musician has personal influences. The reasons you started playing an instrument, singing or making music is a big part of the passion to what you create. However, marketing music based solely on what you like can lead to missed opportunities. You may unintentionally exclude entire fanbases because of unconscious biases.

Take my earlier example with The Cure. I was never a big fan of Morrissey’s personal style, meaning I may have skipped specifically marketing to the fanbase of The Smiths. My unconscious bias would be a silly mistake – because the data shows there’s a major overlap between fans of both bands.

Music-Map let’s you take a step back from your personal tastes and look at the fan landscape with cold, fresh, objective eyes. It may also reveal artists you wouldn’t have ever considered. Alphaville would not have been on my radar as a potential crossover band with The Cure, albeit they’re at the outer limit of the visualised relationship!

Build Detailed Fan Personas

Once you are clear which other artists align with your core influences, you can begin building realistic audience personas. These are fictional, yet research-based profiles, helping you define your ideal fans using their cultural, psychological and personal characteristics.

A solid method to create such personas is to close your eyes and imagine the ideal fan is sitting opposite you, simply having a chat about your favourite music. Ask yourself:

• Who are they?

• What do they listen to?

• What’s their name?

• What do they look like?

• How do they dress?

• How do they talk?

• Do they remind you of anyone you know?

The more personalised you can be about picturing your ideal fan, the better you can tailor your branding, social media tone, and any marketing content. It’s as if you were actually speaking one-to-one.

Hone Your Advertising Targeting

Running paid ads on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube or Spotify? You’ll want to target the most relevant audiences of course. Music-Map can help you go beyond the more generic options like age, sex, location, or even broad music genre interests, like “indie music”, “hip-hop music”, or “Spotify.”

Armed with the constellation charts from Music-Map, you can target fans of individual, similar artists via interest groups, channels or keyword. This level of granularity can significantly improve ad performance.

Taking my earlier example to create a campaign on Meta platforms (Facebook / Instagram), I could set-up three distinct ad sets targeting fans of The Cure, Joy Division and The Smiths. This could reach at least 4.5 million people across the UK and USA alone.

Monitoring which group engages most with my content would allow me to refine and optimise targeting options, leading to further performance gains over time.

This tactic can really transform your ad campaigns to become more data-led at set-up, ensuring your budget goes further.

Guide Your Content and Platform Strategy

Better understanding who your audience is, and who else they love, can shape what kind of content you create and where you choose to post it.

Let’s say your musical style is close to a well-known artist doing well with lo-fi studio clips on TikTok or stripped-down, acoustic sessions on YouTube. These are your clues. Lean into the trends you see and hear and put your own spin on it. Mirror what works for your audience – but make it yours.

Music-Map can highlight content opportunities by showing you which artists are in your lane, enabling you to observe what platforms they’re winning on.

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At first glance, Music-Map may seem like just another simple, online visualisation gimmick. But with the right application, it can be a powerful research assistant.

For independent musicians without access to a big team or data budget, this resource offers a sneak peak into how music fans cluster around their main influences. It puts power in your hands to make smarter, conscious marketing decisions – without losing your creative soul!

If you’re at the start of your music marketing journey, don’t overlook the value of understanding:

• Who is your potential audience

• Where you can reach them

• How you should speak to them

Music-Map is completely free and simple to try. Get using it to uncover hidden audience gems, potential new targeting angles and refine your marketing approach.

If nothing else, it’s quite addictively fun to play around with, to see how different artists overlap!

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Organic Social Media is a no-brainer for up-and-coming musicians today. You’d be crazy not to post regularly to your core fans. Your gig-goers, friends, family. Even your dog … Well, maybe not your dog! But pretty much every contact counts.

Great Organic Social could lead to that “one-in-a-million” piece of content. The video that goes stratospheric. Before you know it, you’re at the Grammys, mixing with Taylor Swift and assorted Music Industry Royalty. Happy days!

But let’s be realistic. Such cases are rare. Very rare. Being active on Organic Social is essential. Relying on it alone to “make-it” is wishful thinking.

That’s why I strongly believe in the power of Paid Social Media Advertising. It can complement your organic efforts, leading to faster growth of your Fanbase. I’ve five solid reasons why it can be a game-changer. I’ll come to them in just a moment.

💰 But Isn’t Paid Social Expensive?

If you’re super-serious about your music career, you’re already investing in it - right?

· You’ve bought instruments, music gear or studio time.

· You’ve paid for videos and travel costs to gigs.

· You’ve poured thousands of hours into your craft too.

Consider Paid Social as another smart investment to developing your Fanbase and a road to success. You don’t need a huge budget. Even $50-100 a month makes a difference.

Let’s dive into five reasons why this marketing channel is a must for music artists.

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🔑 1. Huge Reach and Laser Targeting

The Social Networks, like Meta and TikTok, have billions of users. Instagram and Facebook, owned by Meta, have 2-3 billion global, active monthly users. TikTok has about 1.5 billion active monthly users. Amongst those billions, there’s a treasure trove of music fans you can access.

With a wealth of user data, the platforms have developed sophisticated targeting options for advertisers. You can target by the basics - such as age, sex and location. Deeper interests and behaviours can also be selected. You name it. It’s even possible to create “lookalike audiences” of your existing organic fanbase, enabling you to reach new but similar types of people.

Forecasting tools help predict how far your budget will go. This makes it easier to set targets and plan a Fanbase growth path over time.

📆 2. Desired Exposure

On average, only 2-6% of your organic posts will be seen by followers. If you have 500 fans, maybe only 20 will see the amazing late night studio video clip you put out.

With Paid Ads, you control your scheduling and visibility. Through campaign settings, ensure how, when and to how many new people your content will reach.

🧪 3. Test-Learn-Optimised

In marketing, we love Test-and-Learn strategies. An advertiser can set up different:

• Audiences

• Creative formats

• Messaging – hooks, offers or response asks

The Social Platforms offer rich data to help measure and refine campaigns, towards the winners, in real-time. The optimisations can also be applied to future activity – a continuous improvement approach.

Learn from your Organic “hits” too. High engagement videos, songs or catchy phrases can be translated to the Paid Ad environment. It de-risks testing. Saving you money.

🤖 4. Automated Ease

A.I. type tools are baked into platforms like Meta and TikTok. They help refine targeting, optimise budgets and campaign delivery. Compared to just a few years ago, when campaign set-up and monitoring was far more manual, the majority of work today can be done on autopilot.

Even ad format creation can now be streamlined. Provide the video assets and messaging you want featured and let the platform do the rest.

You don’t need to be a tech guru to use Paid Social Ads. If you’re doing Organic content, you’re halfway there already.

❤️ 5. Build Relationships

Growing a Fanbase for your music isn’t about making instant “sales” like other commercial products or services. The Fan’s Journey from discovery to super-fandom is much longer.

Paid Social lets you begin, then nurture, a relationship over time. Unlike Streaming platforms, where you’ll also be present with your music of course, Social Media offers rich engagement options. From likes, comments, shares, to sign-ups and even eventual purchases, all these interactions exist within one data-rich ecosystem.

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Ready To Try Paid Social?

Used smartly, Paid Social isn’t just advertising – it’s the growth engine for your Fanbase.

Have you considered it yet? Is something holding you back?

Ask yourself:

• What content could I turn into ads?

• Which Social Platform do I favour?

• When could I run a small test campaign?

• What budget feels comfortable to start out?

Remember … Many small steps eventually take you a long, long way.

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As a music artist, I’m sure you want your work heard, seen and loved. Ideally by the widest possible audience.

Whether you’re just starting out, chasing a record deal, forging a path as an independent, “earning” artist, or just having fun with your music, you want to be heard.

You want your music to reach people. To touch people. To be appreciated.

It’s never been easier to create and publish content as a musician…

• DAW platforms for production.

• Streaming platforms for listening.

• Video platforms for seeing as well as hearing.

• Social platforms for likes and engagement.

• Dare I mention the “AI” word to make content creation even easier? Maybe not now…!

With all this amazing technology at our disposal though, thousands of readymade followers are a mere click or two away!

If only it were that easy, right?

There is so much choice out there for music fans. So much noise! It’s arguably harder than ever to ACTUALLY get seen and heard. You’re likely left with the feeling you’re wasting your time and talent.

Maybe you’re experiencing a crisis of confidence in your abilities? Or feeling a bit lost with the direction you’re taking?

Why You Need The Music Marketer

That’s why I’ve decided to start The Music Marketer Newsletter. My goal is to help aspiring and established music artists, producers performers and DJs. I want to help you get in front of more of your potential fans.

As an independent music artist, I believe you’ll massively improve your chances of future success if you own your marketing and self-promotion activities. REALLY OWN IT!

I know, I know …

You hear the word “Marketing” and probably think “bore the **** off!

“It’s time-sapping!”

“It’s complicated!”

“It’s technical!”

“It’s for the professionals!”

Through this platform, I’m hoping to impart a slice or two of my weird and wonderful knowledge. All gained from my 25-year career in the marketing and advertising industry.

But more than that …

I really want to help you because I’m a musician too. I’ve played in bands, produced music, played some great gigs in my dim-and-distant past. I still play guitar daily. Sadly, I never quite “made it big” when I was younger. But I had fun along the way. Still do.

My “time” was before the social media thing really took off. But for you now, the possibilities to market your music effectively are much, much greater than ever before.

I’ve experienced many of the challenges and frustrations you’re no doubt going through right now when it comes to marketing yourself as an artist.

Fusing my profession with my passion feels like an opportunity to give something back. It’s something I want to do. I’m excited by it and will no doubt learn a few things myself along the way.

It would be absolutely amazing to have you on the journey with me. I’d love to see what small things I can contribute towards your future growth and success.

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I will commit to provide you with information and anecdotes you haven’t found, heard or had packaged-up elsewhere. I’ll be a guide and companion on your musical and marketing journey.

You care about your music and your fans more than anyone. Let’s see if I can help you surprise and delight them. Let’s see if some of these ideas can help grow your audience!

My hope is this will grow into something more than just a newsletter. With the help of readers, a like-minded musical community who can feedback, I’ll be able to more effectively shape the topics and content I share over time.

This Is What Will Be Covered

The Music Marketer will offer thoughts and ideas. Tips and tricks. Its specific objective will be to help grow your dedicated fanbase by using killer, digitally focussed marketing.

I’ll provide industry insights, lateral and tangential ideas, reviews and commentaries. All on stuff that has crossed my (mixing) desk!

I’ll show you strategies and tactics for both free and paid marketing routes . All designed to drive growth of your own audience.

Where possible, I’ll even bring in real-life case studies. Maybe you can become one of them?

I believe the importance of building and owning the relationship with your fanbase can’t be under-estimated. It gives you:

• Control: you dictate who, how, where, when and why content you create actually lands.

• Reach: you want to be seen and heard by as many relevant people as possible, otherwise what is the point of your blood, sweat and tears?

• Gig-goers: drive interest and attendance to your shows more easily, whether real or virtual.

• Leverage: a bigger, more committed fanbase strengthens your negotiating hand with industry promoters, venues, managers, publishers, reviewers and labels.

• Income: more effectively generate paid revenue and support through your music output and merchandise.

If you feel your music career and marketing efforts would benefit from any of this help, hop onboard. Join me and get reading…

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My promise to you is this;

The information I share will always be sincere. It will always be from the real-world of marketing and advertising. I’ll try and avoid the fluff. No nonsense.

When You Can Expect To Hear From Me

My aim is to deliver new content to you weekly. As a subscriber, every new edition of The Music Marketer will be sent directly to your inbox.

Subscription is entirely free. An optional paid subscription will follow soon, offering special extras and additional content.

Sign-up now and expand your music marketing mind…